David Meerman Scott, a well-known marketing strategist, coined the term "newsjacking," which he describes as "the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business." The concept makes sense, and we all know that a great way to gain relevance online is by leveraging hot topics and news items that are beginning to trend-but it's a competitive, and fast-moving, field. How do content marketers stay on top of the relevant trends and news in their industries to ensure they're curating and communicating fresh, engaging content?

A Look at Brand Engagement on Google+

In November of 2011, Google+ opened its doors to brands and Simply Measured is now looking at whether or not the brands that jumped on the bandwagon are seeing much engagement. Google's forays into the world of social networking have been, well... less than successful in the past. While Google+ has fared better, it's still no "Facebook killer."

According to Simply Measured, though, brands are seeing improving engagement on the site. In a blog post, the company wrote, "Overall activity is on the rise: average weekly circler engagement is up 112% and content engagement is up 65%."

Simply Measured says "Circler" engagement is up 138% since February, but warns "it is still early and the scale of brand activity on Google+ still pales in comparison to Facebook and Twitter." And that is really the heart of the matter, isn't it?

When a brand is prioritizing its social media to-do list, Google+ likely ranks pretty low. The network might be growing steadily, but it doesn't have the market share of Facebook, the interactivity of Twitter (think about how shows like The Voice use hashtags to build a community on Twitter), or the buzz of a site like Pinterest. And like most sites, content engagement is driven largely by video and photo content.

All you have to do is look around the web to see how Google+ is really faring. Does your favorite site even have a Google+ button to share content? If it does, you can be almost certain that the Facebook and Twitter shares far outnumber the Google+ shares. Simply Measured seems optimistic about Google+'s chances for succsss, though. The blog post concludes that the social network is "here to stay."